1964 Type-34 Ghia found in NJ
After 7 months of negotiations and phone tag, this true 'Garage' find has finally come home!
Last September I get an email from a
guy in Philly, that has a Girlfriend who has inherited all the belongings of her
Grandparents who have passed away.
The email details that he had stumbled upon the 1500 Club Website while
'Googling' "Volkswagen 1500 in an attempt to find someone to help with the
purchase of the car.
So I assume it's either a Notch or Squareback due to the fact that they did not
take any pictures of the car.
Rose, the girl who inherited the
car, emailed me a month later with the pictures you see above.
She tells me that the car was her Grandfather's, who treasured this beauty and
always kept it garaged.
She says that after he passed away in the late 1980's, the car just sat in the
garage and never moved again.
His widow passed on last Summer and left all their belongings to their
Granddaughter, Rose.
Her Grandfather, John Smith, from Red Bank, New Jersey, never left his car
outside overnight.
Rose said that she will write up a detailed history of her grandfather and the car to the best of her memory.
To obtain the car, I enlisted the
help of a very good friend, Kai Schilders, of The Netherlands, who contacted
"Gibbs" from the
Barndoor Mafia, who in turn gave me the info of Ed Picco, aka Ed Poptop from
Jersey. We soon struck up a friendship where he subsequently
picked up a VW 1500 Notchback of his own, that was just sitting in someone's
backyard in New Jersey. Ed picked up my Type-343
from Red Bank, New Jersey and stored the car at his house for several weeks
until the Transport "Man", Mike Hall picked it up March 23.
For his efforts, I offered to pay for his plane ticket to the 2009 VW Classic
here in SoCal in June... he truly earned it!
Now, I made a deal with my fellow
'Clubber', Jack Fisher, aka the Candy Man, that I would be willing to pay
him to help me
restore this all original beauty in time for the Classic. In turn, I would be
willing to let him have the car to drive to the Classic
and however long it takes me to bring up the courage to tell my Wife that this
is my 4th Type-3 I've acquired in the last 28 months.
Who knows, he may be driving this car to the 2010 Classic as well... :-/
BTW, the wife only knows of the Gulf Blue '62 Notchback I have... so no one says
a word to her!
The Car finally showed up on April
Fools Day, 2009, at Jacks' Type-3 Refuge, aka his backyard. Here are some
pictures that I shot
of the delivery of the car.
Now, a little about the car...
It's a July, 1964 build with Export
Spec headlamps and Speedo. It also has the era correct "Screamer Kit" available
from EMPI
which came with a 019 Dizzy and a Blue Coil. Everything is all original to the
car including the numbered rubber floor mats.
The interior is complete with very little wear, but has a major mildew issue.
Hopefully that will clean up with something.
The only rust issues on the car are in the spare-tire well under the brake fluid
reservoir, and behind the front wheels by
the rockers. I'll need to source out an early generator cover, air-cleaner, and
a few other tidbits, but for the most part,
I just need to rebuild the motor, brakes, and deep clean the interior! Jack and
I will keep you all posted on the progress
to get this done before the Classic.
It's been two weeks and a lot has
been done. Jack's got the engine out, dismantled, and delivered to Rick who is
going to rebuild it.
Pedro has gotten all the engine tin powder-coated and he currently working on
the Racks... he's the man!
I (Bob) went down to SD to deliver some parts and pick up the parts to be
chromed; I've since delivered them to the Chromer.
Jack has painted the rims and had the BF Goodrich tires mounted and is currently
working on the brakes.
A month has gone by and I have two
major updates to post. First, I purchased a "Costco" Garage so that Jack has the
comforts of a garage to work in.
We spent the better part of a Sunday to assemble the canopy, with the help of
Netherland's very own "Kai", Pedro, Jack and myself.
Then Jack showed me the beautifully
preserved German Square-Weave carpet that was uncovered when he stripped out the
aftermarket carpet that was covering it.
It was a sight to see. Along with the NOS driver's side armrest, that I was able
to acquire from Bert in Belgium (Thanks Bert), I am going to have a beautiful
all original interior!
Upon taking the parts to be Chromed, I always take
photos of the items to be chromed for a record of how the items looked as well
as an inventory to make sure we get all of our parts back.
Here are the pictures I took the day I dropped off the items to be chromed...
Now here's what the parts came back as... pay careful attention to the huge dent on the left rear blade as well as the detail of the SB 13 headlight rings. The rear-view mirror was so oxidized I was astonished at how nice it came back as.
